Getting Underneath Anger

Transcript

Weather Banter And Welcome

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning, good morning. Thanks for braving the storm outside. Very brave of you. Woke up this morning. I was like, I cannot trust the weather app at all. I woke up, I look outside, I'm like, oh good, it didn't snow. Look at my weather app. It says snow will be stopping in 25 minutes. And I'm like, it's not even snowing right now. Like, what is going on here? No one knows what's going on. Okay. Before we jump into the sermon, uh I want to talk real quick about groups, do a little plug. So if you don't know, one of the kind of types of groups we have is a sermon discussion group, which is, as you might guess, where you get together and you connect and you discuss the sermon. Not just in like an intellectual way, but like how is this connecting with my life? Like it's great because it's very, there's low prep, right? Like you don't have to read a book or you know, do a whole lot of homework. It's just like, oh, be here and be open to how God's working in your life. And it's helpful because you get to talk about that stuff. Because sometimes, you know, the life is busy, so it kind of goes in one ear, out the other. You're like, oh, I should think about this more, and then you just don't, if you're anything like me. Um now, one of the great things is we have quite a few groups. Most of them, though, have filled up over the last like several months. And so periodically throughout the year, we kind of start a new batch of these groups, do it for like six to eight weeks. Um, and then of course, we hope that, like, hey, if your group is going good and you like everyone in your group or almost everyone in your group, that you would continue meeting, and it's a great on-ramp for people to get connected in community. But there's also no pressure to go beyond that kind of initial six to eight week push. So I'm hoping to do another little launch of them after Easter, so like April 19th for six weeks, kind of till the end of May, as we start our new series in First Corinthians after the after Easter time. So if that is something you are interested in, is like leading a group, we'll announce more as it gets closer, like getting connected in a group. But if beat leading, hosting a group is something you're like, hey, I could maybe do that. I could do that for six weeks or give it a shot, please reach out to me. I'd love to talk to you about how you could do that, kind of talk through it, help set you up for success there. So um, yeah, it's a great way to kind of create space for people in our church to find community and to get connected. All right, um, on to our sermon for today. So we are in a series kind of leading up to Easter called Practicing Resurrection. Uh, one of the things we believe is that resurrection is like resurrection life is not just something that happens after we die and are raised from the dead, but it's something Jesus created us to experience here and now, like today, to live the life in the kingdom that we were created for. And so we've kind of been using this metaphor found in scripture about taking off the old self so that we can put on the new self found in Christ. Um, another kind of way to think about what we're talking about is if you your life is like a tree or a plant, um, we cannot necessarily create growth in our life or create spiritual growth or spiritual maturity. But what we can do, like God is the only one who can do can do that in our life, but what we can do is tend the soil and the conditions so that growth can happen. Right? So we're not talking about just white knuckling our way into being a good Christian or filling a list, like checking a bunch of boxes or anything like that, but about creating the conditions in our life so that God can bring about transformation. Um, I was reading uh this guy, Meister Eckhart. He has some kind of weird stuff. He's a German theologian from way back in the day. But I love sometimes the way he says things. I found this quote this weekend and wanted to share it with you. Um he says, God is the ground of your soul, like a spring of living water. If you've ever seen a spring out in the wild, it's just like bubbling up out of the ground, right? Um, if someone were to throw dirt on it, it becomes choked and blocked so that you lose sight of it. But if you remove the dirt, you'll find that spring again, whole and unblemished as it always was. The presence of that living water is not your work, for it is always living, but it is your task to keep it clear. So that's what we're talking about today. God is constantly at work in your life, moving in your life, but our job is to keep that clear so that God can do his work. And the lie of sin, of the old self, is that if we give in, it brings freedom. All right, if I do things my way, that's the best way. But actually, what we've seen is that sin and all this old self kind of stuff brings bondage. It kind of traps us and tricks us into living a less than life than God has created us for. This is very true with what we're gonna talk about today, which is anger and kind of all the associated things that you talked about in these old self, new self kind of passages. Anger, wrath, malice, fits of rage, bitterness. Um, now, if you've been around the last like year and a half, we've talked about anger actually quite a bit, because we were in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus talked about anger. Uh, we talked about anger just a few weeks ago in the Psalms about anger and prayer and being angry at God and what to do with our anger. So I don't want to go into like all the things that we've already talked about, but some of it is important. So I just want to do some like quick disclaimers up front if you weren't here for that, knowing that you can go deeper if you want to, or I'd love to talk to you about it. Number one kind of thing as we set up as we talk about anger is the emotional response of anger, of like getting angry at something, is not a sin, okay? Sometimes we think it is, because maybe you've heard that, or it's like what we do afterwards often becomes sin. But that emotional response of like, oh, I'm angry about my stupid weather app that is like telling me the wrong information. Like that's not a sin in the moment, okay? Here's a couple of things, like little logical things here to think through. Ephesians 4 says, in your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you're still angry, do not give the devil a foothold. In your anger, do not sin, kind of assumes that there is a way to be angry and not sin, right? He doesn't say, hey, don't be angry, that's sinful. He says, when you're angry, don't sin when you're there. The other kind of thing, uh, if you're like having a hard time with this, is Jesus, okay? Jesus, we are told in the Gospels, got angry at times, and we know Jesus was without sin. So if Jesus could get angry and still be perfect and still be sinless, therefore it is theoretically possible to be angry and not sin. Now, Jesus' anger was always on behalf of other people. So he's angry about injustice that he's noticing around him. He's not angry about his own rights being violated. Um, and Jesus' anger did happen very rarely, if you were to read through the Gospels. And it was something that happened but didn't really mark his character. So here's the way I love uh this author, Rebecca De Young, who talks about uh sin, uh the way she talks about this. Anger should not be the primary mark of our character. Jesus might well have been intensely angry when he cleared the temple of the money changers. And he, of all human beings, must have been acutely aware of the abundance of injustice in the world. So he knew all the jacked-up stuff that was going on in the world. Yet no one would dream of describing him as the wrathful type. Right? Jesus got angry, but no one was like, hey, that Jesus guy, he's angry all the time, right? Those with the virtue of gentleness have mastered their anger rather than being mastered by it. When they act with anger, they channel its power rather than being swept away by its force. Right? So the way Jesus was angry is a very different way than most of the time than we're angry. Uh second little uh kind of disclaimer thing here. Anger is not inherently bad or good, right? If it's not a sin, it's not bad or good. And in fact, the emotional response, and Mac talked about this um just a few weeks ago, the emotional response of anger fires faster in our brain than our thinking brain can keep up with. Right? So anger is not rational, it just happens, and we can't really control that it comes up in our head. Um it's not bad or good, it just is. And so instead of demonizing it or celebrating it, I think what's helpful is to think of it as neutral and that it's what we do with our anger that's most important. All right, third little thing we've talked about recently. Anger is an indicator that something is happening either internally or around us that doesn't feel right. Right? Like this is why our brain fires the anger emotions in us. It's because something is not right in the world around us. And so, look through this way, and if you think about the life of Jesus, there is a way for anger to be actually like a catalyst for deeper love. But, I don't know about you, that is not how I experience anger most of the time. Right? Most of the time, our anger uh does not look like Jesus' anger, and so instead, it's more like you know, uh it holds us captive, it controls us, it masters us, it fractures relationships, it hurts other people as it lashes out. Uh we root for other people to fail and to be punished. Uh we uh we're ruled by cynicism and bitterness that can't even see the good in other people, right? We demonize other people. Uh anger leads to shouting or snapping or passive-aggressive comments and thoughts or stewing on things, all sorts of things that our anger does not look like Jesus' anger. Um, and today we're gonna talk about how do we find freedom from anger, not so that we never feel angry, right? I'm assuming we're all gonna feel angry, we can't really control that, but so that it doesn't control us or just sweep us away. So we're gonna look at Ephesians 4, a little bit later than what we just read. Paul says this get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Right? So we want to take off the old self that's mastered by anger, and instead learn to put on a new self that's mastered by kindness, compassion, gentleness, forgiveness, all the things that Jesus created us for. Um, and so just remember, as we kind of talk about this, um, because we've talked about anger so much, I want to get really practical as we talk about this. Um, but this is not about how you can fix yourself up, but about how we create the conditions of our heart and our soul so that God can work in our life and transform us. So, how do we take off the old self? Well, one of the things about anger that's challenging is that we don't have control in the moment what's gonna like activate our anger, right? Like sometimes one day the same thing won't phase us, and the next day it just like gets under your skin, right? It happens faster than we can really control. And so the first thing we need to do is to learn to relate properly to our anger when that does happen, when it does get activated. And there's kind of two extremes of how like how not to do this, but how depending on how you grew up or whatever, is how you might have learned how to do this. So if you imagine a line, right? One extreme would be to suppress your anger, right? Did anyone grow up in a family where suppressing your anger is what you're supposed to do? Yeah, this was my family. Okay, not very many people. Well, I'm a little scared now. Um so we suppress it. Uh, we talked about this a few weeks ago in the Psalm series, like how bad this can be, though. Because when we suppress our anger and push it down, it doesn't actually go away, right? It just comes out sideways, it affects us, it affects other people. But the other extreme is that we end up feeding our anger and we justify it and we rationalize it, and we end up stewing on it and rehearsing what happened in our head, and maybe even having imaginary arguments with the person that you're angry with. I don't know if you've ever done that. Or you catastrophize and blow things up like, can you believe if this would have happened, then this would have happened, and then with the whole world would have right? It gets like bigger and bigger and bigger, and we make things black and white and like demonize other people and feed our anger so that it's driving us and controlling us. Right? And this extreme, and most people who do this, they don't want to suppress their anger, so they kind of just flip-flop to the other side and like uh like get it out and feed it and justify it. Um it's not good because it forms us into angrier people. Um, some of the early church writers talked about how anger is like a fire, that it's useful, it can be a good tool, but if you're not careful, it will get out of control and just spiral everywhere. Um, so what we're supposed to do is uh listen to it. And the one on the right there should say feeding our anger. That's how that's what we kind of do with it. What we want to do, what we're talking about today, is listening to our anger. Right? And this might be like kind of a silly thing to say, but we want to listen to it, treat it like if you were driving your car and a little warning light came up, be like, oh, there's something I need to pay attention to. What is this little light telling me right now? So that's what I want to talk about, kind of the rest of our time together, is how we listen to our anger, um, dig in to see what's underneath it, so we're not controlled by it, and instead it becomes an opportunity for deeper discipleship with God. And so our bottom line for today is that anger is a warning light, not a green light. Right? It's not a green light just to, hey, I'm feeling angry, I'm just gonna let it out. But it is a warning light that we want to pay attention to and listen to and see what's underneath and figure out how God might be moving in us. And when we can do that, when we can kind of take a step back and say, hey, what is my anger telling me right now? It actually what I found is it it creates some distance between you and your anger and kind of robs anger of its power and helps us relate to it properly. Instead of seeing it as a source of shame and guilt, because I shouldn't feel angry or I shouldn't have blown up or all of these ways we should all over ourselves, right? We say this. Instead, we can look and say, like, okay, God, what are you doing? What are you trying to get my attention about through this emotion of anger that's that's flaring up in my life? It's actually a spiritual opportunity. Now, what makes this difficult, I think, is that anger kind of tricks us into listening to it and to feeding it, or into like listening to it in a negative way, like feeding it or suppressing it. And as I was thinking about this, I thought of a um clip from Parks and Rec. If you guys know the great Ron Swanson, uh he had just been shot in the head in this episode with a shotgun, um, and he's very angry about it. So why don't you take a look? Ron, I get your hat! Ron, I have your hat! Are you in a lot of pain? I was shot in the head with a shotgun. Ron, it's actually not that serious. I just need you to stay calm, okay? Yeah, I'm gonna- I'm just gonna stay angry. I find that relaxes me. Okay, Ron, we call nine. I just love that line. I'm gonna stay angry, I find it relaxes me. Right? And in the that sounds ridiculous, but in the moment, our anger tricks us into thinking, like, yes, this is what I should do with my anger. This is the right thing to do. And so here are some of anger's tricks I wanna talk about. How it uh let's wake up to anger's tricks in our life. One is it tricks us to be like, hey, your anger is justified, right? Which is normally true. Normally, when you're angry about something, there's a good reason for it that your brain can rationalize afterwards. Um, but stewing on it and feeding it is not gonna be helpful, right? It does not drive us towards deeper love for the people around us to stew on our anger and really like rehearse how justified we are. For example, if Megan and I, my wife, are in a fight or an argument, right? It's often justified. In fact, we're both often justified in how angry you are with each other. But if I focus on how justified I am and how not justified she is, all of a sudden we've become enemies and we're not actually moving towards each other or making anything better, right? Um, it's not helpful for dialogue or relationship or for love just to rehash how justified I am in my anger. Also, maybe you've noticed this, our anger can be justified, but the intensity of it can be out of whack, right? So maybe a small thing can happen, um, but our anger flares up and we turn it into a big thing. And so we listen to the intensity of our anger when that maybe not as so helpful, right? Um, the more strongly and justified I feel, it's a trigger to slow down and listen. Be like, okay, what's like underneath this? Like I feel really like I need to defend myself. What's happening underneath me? Uh, second thing, way the anger tricks us, is we believe that if I give up my anger, I'm giving up on justice or getting what I need, right? Like I don't want to seed ground. I'm not gonna be pushed around anymore. This is usually what happens for us suppressors who suppress our anger, then all of a sudden it just like blows up out of nowhere, right? Um, but if I it's like if I give into my anger, if I let go of my anger, nothing is gonna change. So we like hold on to our anger. But this is a lie because uh it means that when we work for justice, anger won't be the filter through which we see everything. Right? If we're holding on to our anger, that actually affects how we go about getting the right things done, right? That's what justice is. But if we can release it, like loosen our grip on it, we can actually move towards each other and love a whole lot better. I love the way this author, Lanta Davis, says it. She says wrath impairs our ability to see clearly, so that even if our motivation is just, wrath causes us to make poor decisions and simply create further injustices. Right? One of the, you know, like I've shared before, I have three girls, uh, three young kids, they le somehow have no idea how to clean up our house when they make a giant mess, right? I don't know where they learned that, but they do not know how. And a lot of time I try to be patient and calm, and sometimes I'll be like, oh my gosh, there's just stuff everywhere, right? Like, what's going on? Um, deep down, my frustration is fairly like justified in the sense that it's like, hey, it's not okay just to leave your toys all over the house right now. Um, but if I allow my anger to catapult me into that conversation, I am just creating further injustice and then having to apologize and deal with a lot of hurt feelings, and then the house is still messy by the end of it, right? Um, this is what happens too with like uh we've seen it culturally with rioting, right? Like people who have a lot of times there's a just cause, but then the anger just takes over and takes control, and all of a sudden it's creating further injustice in the world. I love the way Dallas Willard says this. It's probably not true, but if you think of it like a proverb where it's true like 90% of the time, I think it's awesome. He says, There is nothing that can be done with anger that cannot be done better without it, right? Whether that's something big in the world, whether that's me getting my kids to pick up their stuff in our house, if I am motivated by anger, I am gonna be blinded to a lot of things and probably just make things worse. Right, but anger tricks us into thinking I need this to get things done and to get what needs to happen to happen. Uh, next uh kind of way anger tricks us is holding in your anger will make you feel better, right? This is what I learned growing up. Like you push it down, you avoid it, you pretend it's not there. Uh, don't make a scene, and it feels right in the moment to not like make a big deal out of things. But usually what happens is it turns to resentment as it gets like pushed down and bitterness. Uh Rebecca De Young says, when resentment smolders beneath the surface, we go through the day like a snake poised to strike at the first sign of movement, right? I don't know if you've had that experience. It's like you push it down and all of a sudden you're just like on edge, ready to like attack anyone who comes at you. Uh the other lie is that letting off steam will make you feel better. Like if I just get it out, I'm gonna feel great. Uh the problem with this is often the way we get it out is detrimental to relationship, right? If you snap at people, if you just kind of like unload on the people around you, and ultimately it doesn't feel as cathartic as we think it's going to. Like we get it out, or if we even if you just yell it out in the car, sometimes you feel a little better, but a lot of times I've noticed I feel like worse afterwards. Like I'm just stewing on it and thinking about it. And the last trick of anger here is that you have no control over your anger. Right? This is kind of like a half-truth, because you don't have any control over in the moment when your anger gets activated, but you do have control over what you choose to do with your anger afterwards. You do have some influence also over what you do with anger is like a big picture theme in your life. Now, for everyone, it's gonna be different, right? Some of you, like maybe because of personality, it's gonna be harder. Maybe because of the house you grew up in, right? If you grew up in a house that's like we just yell at each other all the time, and you know, we have lots of extra plates in case we need to break any during an argument. Like, so for you, it might feel very natural just to like feed that anger all the time because of how you grew up or how much you fed it throughout your life. But the reality is we do have some influence long term over what we do. With our anger and how much we open it up to God and how much we allow Him to form us and soften that and shape us into something else. One of the ways I think about it is like here's a picture of ruts in a road, right? Like these deep ruts down a road. If you have fed your anger, if you are naturally an angry person, if you grew up in an angry household, when anger, when that emotion pops up, it's gonna be so easy to fall right into those ruts and into familiar patterns and ways of relating with people. And it feels like I can't control it. It just happened. I just fell right into this, and now here I am again. And in one sense, that's kind of true. Like if you've really worn those ruts down and or for whatever reason, personality-wise, whatever, it's gonna be really hard to feel like you have any control of anger in that moment. But again, you do have control over what you do after you kind of uh wake up from your anger and see what's happening around you. And long term, you have influence, like talking about years over how you like deal with anger in your life, how much you open your life up to God, how much you uh come to him in prayer, how much you submit your habits and your the ways of thinking to him. You have influence over how you open up the Holy Spirit, how open up your life so the Holy Spirit can form you. And just like it took a long time for the ruts to form, most likely, it takes a long time to reform some of these like deeply ingrained character things in our life and to channel them into something else. But I also bet it wouldn't take as long as you think it would, right? Uh sometimes we overestimate how much we should be able to change in a day or a week, but maybe underestimate that like if I gave myself to this for a year and allow God to form me and shape me and soften me, like a lot would happen. So uh let's talk about what this looks like, putting on the new self. We don't want to just not be angry, we want to grow into the people Jesus has created us to be. Take off the old self so that we can put on the new self. So we have our couple passages, our Ephesians passage again. Um, you know, to be kind, so taking off all of this stuff, be kind, compassionate to one another, forgiving, just as in Christ, God forgive you. Then this great one in James, which if you struggle with anger, I think it's a great one to memorize. My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. That's how God is described a lot of times in the Old Testament. He's slow to become angry. Because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. All right, so as we think about putting on the new self, there's kind of two layers to this. If you've been in a leadership intensive, you've you've heard this language before. There's like reactive and proactive things we can do. So reactive is like something happens, I get angry, and I need to react to that in a way that is like looking like Jesus, right? Proactive is like things I can do no matter what is going on, even if I'm not angry this week, I can still do things to open myself up to God's transforming work. So let's talk about some of the reactive things first. How we can listen to our anger and respond with something different. So, first, if you're in the moment, right, take a breath, slow down, or if you completely blow it, that's fine. Just reflect on it afterwards. Oftentimes, if we blow it, we feel shame, and that keeps us from thinking about it, and that actually keeps us from being able to learn and open our lives up to God. So spend some time thinking about what's underneath your anger. What is like what is that warning light attached to? And I just want to give you a bunch of examples. All of these are in the sermon notes, so if later this week you want to spend some time thinking about this, they're kind of all there. Um, some things that might be underneath our anger. One would be injustice, right? This is what Jesus' anger is all about. Uh he sees injustice happening around him and he's responding to it. Uh, something else that can be underneath our anger is hurt or an unresolved issue of some sort. Right? When I think back to like fights Megan and I have had, oftentimes I'm not even as mad about the thing we're talking about. Maybe there's, but there's like an issue we haven't resolved, or some way I feel hurt. And as long as I'm like creating an enemy out of her and we're fighting about you know whatever's happening with the fridge or you know, whatever it might be, like we're not actually dealing with any of that stuff underneath. And so if I can learn to see, like, hey, this is what's really happening underneath the surface, we can get to the core and actually deal with those things instead of just reacting in anger. Um, next, uh, anger can show us that there is a boundary being crossed or violated. Right? Uh anger kind of alerts us to this. I think a lot of times when we don't even realize we had a boundary in place, but something happens, we get angry, and instead of demonizing the other person, it can be a way to look inward and say, why am I so angry about this? Right? Like I think of this is something I do all the time, or I've tried to do it less, is taking a joke too far, right? Everyone's laughing, and then it's like you just push it a little over the edge, and all of a sudden the person's mad, and you're like, oh shoot, right? But oh, there's a boundary being crossed, and anger is alerting us to that. Or I don't know how many of you have ever done this. You say yes to something and then later feel resentful that that person made you say yes to the thing you said yes to, right? That anger at like, oh, why would they ask me to do that, or why did I say yes to this, is maybe alerting you to, hey, I had a boundary there I was not even aware of. And so, in that sense, anger can be a real gift to see what's happening inside of us that we might not have access to. Anger can be a symptom of needs not being met, right? Um, this is where the term hangry comes from. Like, you know, hey, there's something else happening underneath my anger. Um, it can be a symptom of wants not being met, like me not getting what I want out of life. You know, Mac last week talked about all the things that we have unhealthy attachments to, um, you know, whether it's like food or drink or whether it's technology or entertainment or all of these kinds of things. Um and sometimes what happens is when we don't get what we want, we get angry if we can't get what we want. Or something interrupts them, we get angry. And that's like a trigger of not that whoever interrupted me is evil, but like, oh, maybe I'm like overly attached to this thing that I'm holding on to and looking to give me life out of. Right? So anger often shows me that I'm making my wants and desires an idol. Anger can be a symptom or kind of point to the fact that we're living without enough margin, right? Life is too full. If everything has to go perfect down to like the second in order for your life to work, you probably are living with too, like, there's not enough margin in your life. Because guess what? Life rarely goes as planned. And so if you fill your life to the brim, or maybe even like an extra five or ten percent, if anything goes wrong, it's so frustrating. Like, gosh, how long does it take to get your shoes on, kids? Come on, right? Like, this is the type of person that comes out when we don't have enough margin. I think of it as uh when I go to somewhere like Roots, where you can buy a cup of drip coffee. I'm very cheap. And so they say, Do you want room for cream? And I say, No, I'm good, but I'm gonna put cream in it. But I don't want to like miss that half a sip that they weren't gonna fill it up. So I take the cup over and I set it down and I put some cream in it. I'm like, oh shoot, I did it again. And it's like full all the way. And I do the slow walk of shame, like back to my spot. And the problem is not if someone bumps me, it's not that they're being careless, it's that I filled my cup way too full for that moment, right? And that's what so many of us do with our schedules is we fill our life too full and then get angry when anyone bumps us, when really that warning light is like, hey, maybe there's a little too much on your plate right now. Maybe the problem isn't everyone else but you. Living without rest can be another thing, right? Uh this is one that I struggle with because I like to stay up late, and so and then I get grouchy the next day, right? Friday night, I stayed up way too late. I we had some friends over, then I cleaned the house or cleaned up a little bit afterwards, then I read a book, and it's like after one o'clock that I'm going to bed, but my kids still get up at the same time. And the first 20 minutes of the morning, I was just like felt so grouchy. It's like, gosh, why are my kids so annoying this morning? It's like, oh wait, it's not them, it's me. Right? And luckily, because I was preaching on this today, it was like this kind of fork in the road moment of like, oh, what am I gonna do with this information that now I have? And and it was great because I took some time to like, okay, I gotta not trust my gut reaction in this moment today. I gotta take some extra time to pray and to connect with God so that I'm not just overwhelmed with anger. But really, my kids weren't doing anything wrong. It was just I did not get enough rest. And living without margin or rest makes us irritable, and that should be a sign that we need to do something about that uh so that we are not leaking out anger at the people around us, not just pound some more coffee and keep going, right? Uh underneath anger can be things like fear, right? I'm afraid of what might happen, I'm afraid of where our culture is going, I'm afraid of not getting someone's approval, like will they like me? And so we can get angry when something steps on our fears or steps on our anxiety or steps on our shame. Like there's all sorts of things, and probably you can make another list of a hundred things that could be underneath our anger. But the important thing is, is this week I want to encourage you when you feel angry to slow down. It's like, God, what are you, what is my body, what are you telling me right now through this anger? What is this warning light connected to? Not so that I can feel bad about it or figure it out, but so that I can live into greater freedom that God has created us for. Um, all right, so uh let's see, I'm gonna skip a couple things so Sarah doesn't kill me in the kids' area. Um, let's so proactively, there are also things we can do in order to uh like cultivate a gentle, kind presence with people. And so I just want to kind of rattle through these real quick because basically the whole second half of the sermon is like setting up the action steps, and that's why they're all um online, so you can just kind of go back and reference them. But here's some things you can do to cultivate gentleness, compassion, meekness, and kindness. Like when you're not fired up, when there's not something happening, that you can kind of grow into this. One, read the gospels with an eye for how Jesus was present to people. Right? He was around a lot of annoying people, a lot of people that hated him, and he was able to respond with grace and truth and love. We don't want to just be like good people who don't get angry, but Jesus-looking people who can embody the kindness and love of Jesus. Uh, secondly, pray through challenging interactions and ask God what gentleness might have looked like. Right? If you get in a big argument with a coworker or your spouse or your kid or something, like look back on that, be like, God, what could I have done differently? What would how would you have been in that moment? What would gentleness and kindness have looked like with this person? Thirdly, pray for the people you struggle with, asking God to help you have his compassion and love for them. Right? Say, God, help me to see this really annoying coworker the way you see them, right? Because they're created in God's image. He loves them for some reason, and so God can give us a vision for that and the motivation to love them. Uh fourthly, figure out how much margin and rest you need to be able to respond lovingly. Right? If this is your problem, find your limit. Take 20% off the top. Don't push yourself so hard and then be angry at everyone around you all the time. Uh surround yourself with people who are good at this, right? Including what social media accounts you follow, including what books you read, what podcasts you listen to. If you're putting like angry news feeds in your head all day and then wondering why you're angry, there might be a correlation there, just saying. Um, one way we can embody gentleness is to apologize. Even if you're not sure you have anything to apologize for, you probably do. And so you can move towards that's a way to build uh bridges of relationship. Uh move towards forgiveness, right? Maybe there's people in your life that you have a hard time, you're just holding on to bitterness. Starting that process of moving towards forgiveness can be a way to start to embody a different way of being with people. Practice giving people the benefit of the doubt, right? Putting yourself in other people's shoes, seeing their story. Like, I try to do this with my kids all the time. I fail a lot of the times, but it's like, gosh, like, why are they doing this? It's so frustrating. They're like, okay, what was I like when I was in second grade? I'm like, oh, they're doing pretty good, actually. Like, kind of put yourself in their shoes, a coworker, a boss. Like, what would it be like to have that much stress on your plate? What would it be like to be dealing with this in life so that you can have more compassion? And then lastly, just move towards people you're struggling with with openness and love and a desire to connect. Right? I have found that the people I get frustrated with, or when I'm frustrated, what's natural is to create some distance, right? To see things a little more black and white. But when I move towards people, it's a whole lot harder to be really angry with someone that you feel close to, that you feel connected with. Um, you know, I kind of uh jokingly wrote this down as like when Megan and I are fighting, what we probably need is a date night more than anything else, right? We don't need to figure out the problem that's happening. We need to connect, right? This is true with people you might work with, with your kids, with people, you know, all around you. When you're connected to them, it's a lot harder just to be angry and like lash out at them all the time. So as we wrap up, maybe you know exactly what to do with this. That's great. If not, here's a couple uh action step ideas so that you can start to like open up your life to the Holy Spirit's transforming work in your life regarding anger. Here's some just reflection questions. How do you relate to your anger? Do you suppress it, feed it, why? How does it trick you into feeding it? And then for the practices is pretty much what we just talked about for the last like 15 minutes. Dig into your anger prayerfully, discover what's underneath it. Try one of the ideas to cultivate deeper gentleness, compassion, meekness, and kindness in your life. But I want to remind you as we wrap up here, the goal is not to fix yourself, the goal is not to be a less angry person, the goal is to live into the life that Jesus created you for. A life marked by freedom, a life marked by love, a life marked by gentleness and compassion, where you're not mastered by anger and instead are mastered by love and a desire to be for other people. So let me pray for us and then we can head out and enjoy the rest of the beautiful day till the storm comes, I guess. Uh God, thank you so much for this day. God, I thank you that you speak to our anger, even though we'd probably rather not deal with it and avoid it. God, I just ask that as we go about this week and we lean into how you want to teach us about anger and how to be more loving people, that you would just help us to not experience shame or guilt for all the ways we blow it, but that you would help us to experience your love and your grace so that we can start to uh move past our anger and these things that control us and guide us and manipulate us and animate us. And instead, we can be animated by your spirit. So, God, we thank you so much for your love and your grace. No matter how much we're gonna blow it this week, God, that you still love us and forgive us. In your name we pray. Amen. All right, have a good day. Don't forget, Easter jam is next week. Hope to see you there.